1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a lavage instrument, and, more particularly, to a hand held, battery powered lavage instrument for the debridement of soft tissue.
2. Description of the related art
Hand held lavage instruments are well known in the medical field. Lavage instruments are often used for the debridement of wounds and other body cavities. Typically, lavage instruments are connected to an external fluid source and an external vacuum pressure source. The vacuum source is used to evacuate the irrigation fluid and debris from the wound. Lavage instruments include a fluid pump and an electrical motor, which drives the fluid pump. Most lavage instrument assemblies include a housing which houses the electric motor and which is positioned remote from the hand held lavage instrument. Thus, the hand held lavage instrument primarily serves as a housing with two valves to control suction and irrigation. Recently, however, self-powered lavage instruments have been developed which use DC power cells to power the electrical motor which drives the internal fluid pump, thereby eliminating the need for the remotely located control housing. With such a known lavage instrument, the DC power cells are sealed within a hand held housing. Therefore, after the lavage procedure is finished, the entire hand held device is thrown away, including the batteries which could cause environmental problems.